


Itadakimasu

by threepwillow



Category: Glee
Genre: Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, Alternate Universe - Restaurant, Fic Exchange, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-13
Updated: 2016-08-13
Packaged: 2018-08-08 13:02:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7758823
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/threepwillow/pseuds/threepwillow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kappa, a sushi bar Kurt and his fellow Ohio expats have been frequenting forever, suddenly changes ownership and becomes Jewel of the East - with a hideous new storefront logo, and a guy in an even more hideous giant nigiri costume standing outside, enthusiastically trying to recruit new clientele. Rumor has it the food itself hasn't changed, though, so just to make sure, Kurt's got to keep coming back...right?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Itadakimasu

**Author's Note:**

  * For [notarelationship (justpracticing)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/justpracticing/gifts).



> My tasty prompt for this fun exchange: "Blaine is working as a costumed character outside a restaurant trying to bring in customers, and Kurt is a cashier inside. Clueless crushes but eventually work it out." My fic ended up bending the prompt slightly, and changing Kurt from "cashier" to "regular customer," but only after I anonymously cleared it with [notarelationship](http://archiveofourown.org/users/justpraticing/pseuds/notarelationship) first. My favorite kind of silly AU! ♥ Hope you enjoy!

 

 

There's scheduled closings on the N-Q-R and Kurt is _already_ late, so he hops off at the wrong stop, thanks his past self for not slacking off on his yoga routine even after moving up to full-time at work, and commits to hauling it the rest of the way on foot. He's not _running_ , he's not an insane person, but his thighs will feel the burn of the extra push for speed nonetheless. Not to mention his arm locking his satchel in place so it only smacks into maybe one out of every twelve people on the sidewalk instead of six or seven. He feels bad, but he can't exactly stop to apologize. He's _late_.

"Excuse you!" one woman yells sharply anyway, even though she's clearly just standing in the middle of the sidewalk in front of some sushi place trying to fix her hair, or something. Kurt wastes precious seconds turning around to reluctantly say something, and it's only then he realizes exactly what block he's on, the words dying on his lips.

This is _his_ sushi place – or, well, it used to be. He, Rachel, Mercedes, and the rest of their motley crew of Ohio expats have been coming to Kappa probably once every couple months ever since they'd tried one night to go to the infinitely more successful American-style bar on the corner and found it absolutely, stiflingly jam-packed, the wait for tables nearly an hour. Rachel fell in love with their imitation crab meat, Santana fell in love with never getting carded for her cocktails, and the rest was history. Sure, it's in a fairly awkward location, and the language barrier has always seemed unusually thick, but it's felt like _theirs_ , in a way that so few other places in the city have, a personal secret discovery.

But that was Kappa. This is – Kurt squints up at the new signage on the storefront – _Jewel of the East_ , and it's standing right where Kappa _should_ be, only Kappa sure as hell never had a logo that strikingly hideous. (Or borderline racist.) 

"What's your damage?" the girl with the hair asks again, but Kurt's already shaking himself out of his stare and turning to leave. He has _so many questions_ , but at this rate he is going to have to start running like an insane person after all. He just doesn't have the _time_. 

\--- 

The arguments at the morning meeting get so crazy that by the time it's over, everyone is ready to take lunch early and no one even remembers how late Kurt was. Once most of the office has settled back down to at least a dull roar, and Kurt gets a spare second to himself to breathe, he immediately addresses the problem that's been distracting him all morning. 

_what the HELL happened to Kappa?!_

He caps it with the sushi emoji and a few more question marks, for good measure. Rachel, whose show is dark on Mondays, the insufferable lush, texts him back almost immediately.

 _Ooh, that's right! Mercedes was telling me about this...._  

Kurt clicks back to text Mercedes about it instead, but before he can even finish drafting a message, he gets another from Rachel, this time in a group chat that includes all three of them. He rolls his eyes, hard. 

 **Rachel:** _Mercedes, tell Kurt what you told me about Kappa!_

Mercedes – who, like Kurt, suffers from the unfortunate affliction of having to work a _real_ job – takes a little longer to respond. 

 **Mercedes:** _o yeah! sugar told me about what happened...i guess they got bought by some new ppl and theyre rebranded or something_ ****

**Kurt:** _so this is the END? :( I can't believe we take 1 month off and this happens_

 **Mercedes:** _well no not exactly! its still all the same sushi chefs and cooking staff they had before so the food should be the same its just they hired some ppl who speak better english for up front  
_**Mercedes:** _and theyre billing themselves as some bougie ass place where rich yuppie moms can take their lil kids to eat sushi_

 **Kurt:** _that's ridiculous. what child? eats raw fish??_

 **Rachel:** _I agree! I mean I had a VERY refined palate as a toddler and even I don't think I would have enjoyed much on their current menu..._

 **Mercedes:** _rachel u barely eat off their current menu anyway. i bet those kids like edamame about as much as u do_

 **Kurt:** _well, I guess 'bouge-friendly' would explain the racist new name._

 **Mercedes:** _hold up....say what now??_

Kurt relays the morning's incident to them, as he unpacks his homemade lunch and starts idly filtering through a slog of emails he wasn't able to address earlier because of the hellish meeting. Kurt and Mercedes are both, naturally, appalled at the tacky new name (and gaudy sign, which Kurt also describes in detail), but Rachel finds it "darling" and "more accessible" (Kurt rolls his eyes again, even harder; Mercedes texts him _'i cant even'_ separately from the group chat) and wonders what it must be like to work at a place when it changes ownership like that. Kurt nearly confesses that he'd honestly rather be working at a sushi place, even a weirdly gentrified one with a horrible sign, than to keep working as a lowest-on-the-totem-pole office assistant in an office where the standard modes of communication seem to be grammatically terrible emails and _yelling_.

(Although maybe not this time of year. It's only just turned June and the summer's already getting upsettingly hot, and he can't imagine what the smell must be like out back of a place that serves raw fish when the days start climbing up over 85.)  

One thing they _can_ all agree on: they can't take Sugar's word for it. They need to schedule a sushi date ASAP to see this Jewel of the East for themselves.

\--- 

The Monday drags on, until suddenly it doesn't: Donna, the good-cop of his two ridiculous bosses, decides that they’ve been through enough hell today and that all non-essential staff (read: Kurt) can leave early.  He's overjoyed to be escaping and has understandably mostly forgotten about the morning's Kappa dilemma. It's not till he's turning back onto the block to the subway stop that's actually operational that his memory jogs. _Right._ Kurt wants to gawk without looking like he's gawking, so he crosses the street before he gets too close to Jewel of the East, and loiters under some scaffolding on the sidewalk opposite, studying on the place. God, that sign really is gauche as hell. 

Its tackiness is eclipsed, however, as soon as Kurt's gaze pans down, and he notices the absolute _horror_ that was definitely not there this morning: A person dressed in a full-on mascot suit, face sticking out of a little hole in the front and everything, of a tamago sushi roll. 

"Oh you've got to be _kidding_ ," he whispers to himself, definitely staring now. The person in the sushi suit has their hands full of an inch-thick stack of little flyers – Kurt can't read them from the distance, but he catches some spots of color that echo the ugly logo – and while they're not exactly accosting passers-by, they certainly aren't standing around passively like that summer Lauren Zizes was the mascot for the donut place, either. As soon as anyone makes eye contact or acknowledges the giant sushi, it draws them into conversation, slips a flyer gently into their outstretched hands, smiles. Kurt can't make out the finer details of the face inside the suit from across the street but he can definitely tell that they're smiling, huge and seemingly genuine, especially when the person who stops to talk to them is accompanied by a younger kid. One girl in designer childrenswear but sporting lopsided, unkempt pigtails makes the sushi person _laugh_ , throwing their head back as best they can in the big white-and-yellow costume, and Kurt hears it over the city bustle – it's a man's voice, or he thinks it is anyway, light and gleeful and surprisingly engaging. The grin on his face never fades. The sushi guy is _good_ at this. Almost charmingly so. 

It occurs to Kurt that he's been standing watching a guy dressed as a tamago nigiri charm the pants off strangers for almost fifteen minutes, and the realization has his face coloring with more than just the summer heat. He heads to the end of the block, then back across the street, well on the other side of Jewel of the East, putting it behind him. 

At the next crosswalk, waiting for the light, he pulls out his phone and re-opens the group chat.

  _Can we bump that sushi date up to this Thursday instead of next?_

 --- 

They don't make it to Jewel of the East until the following Tuesday, though. They're trying to schedule around Kurt's perpetually chaotic office, a girl at Mercedes's boutique calling out sick (with food poisoning, no less, which puts them all off raw fish for a hot minute), and Santana's weird summer shifts at the diner, plus Rachel's rehearsal schedule and Sugar's...whatever it is she does. In the end it's simply not possible to accommodate, and rather than waste time trying, Kurt just sets a date with Mercedes and is done with it, even if they've only got fifty-odd minutes of overlap. 

Kurt's – a little early, actually. And when in Rome, do as the Romans do, and in this case the Romans are very casually eavesdropping on a guy in a sushi costume, who happens to be there again at lunch looking cheerful and utterly, un _fairly_ unfazed by wearing a huge sweaty costume in the noonday sun. Kurt stands by a signpost, out of the way of the flow of traffic, and pretends to text someone even as he spies from behind his dark-tinted designer shades. If he's got an excuse to watch this trainwreck from close up, he is absolutely going to capitalize on it. 

"Welcome to Jewel of the East!" the guy says, chipper and grinning, as a hipster dad with a baby in one of those backpack things strolls by. "Now until the thirtieth is our grand re-opening, and we have half-priced appetizers and a couple of specialty rolls that won't be back until next summer!" He hands the dad a flyer, and while the guy is studying on it, sushi-man shuffles around behind him a little to look up – _up,_ Kurt notices, because the hipster dad is pretty tall and the sushi man is pretty...not-tall – at the backpack baby. 

The baby takes one confused look at a man dressed as a giant piece of sushi and immediately begins to cry. 

Kurt stifles a snicker into the back of his free hand. Yeah, kid, that much polyester could make anybody cry. But the guy in the costume looks genuinely heartbroken at the turn of events, his rather prominent eyebrows knitting together under the rim of the suit's awkward face-hole, and Kurt almost feels bad for him. He starts pulling goofy faces at the baby and while it's not making things worse, it certainly doesn't appear to be helping, either, and the dad is starting to walk away before things get even more awkward. The sushi guy opens his mouth on a significant inhale –to get one last word in, or maybe, it almost looks like, to _sing_ something – but Kurt's distracted from his antics by Mercedes bustling into view, dressed in glittering gold and looking for all the world like the star she is. Kurt can't help but grin just looking at her, and she beams back. 

"Sorry I'm late!" she calls as she gets close enough to talk. "You could've waited inside, got a table or something." 

"No, no, I'm early," he tells her. "Just, y'know, checking out the sideshow attraction." He nods his head ever-so-subtly in the direction of the costumed guy, who's bobbing a little from foot to foot in the absence of people to immediately solicit. 

"Good lord, that is bad," she says. "Come on, let's sneak inside before he can accost us. I got some big news for you!" Kurt, intrigued, links arms with her and allows himself to be steered into the restaurant, trying not to get the giggles.

They almost, _almost_ make it to the door. 

"Hi, thanks for coming to Jewel of the East!"

"Oh!" says Kurt, more than a little alarmed, because the guy is _right there_.   

Up close, the guy's smile is even more brilliant, and his eyes are shining with what looks like genuine enthusiasm. For just a relatively disembodied face, it sure is a _cute_ face, but as soon as you look down – well, up close, the costume just looks _that much uglier_. The black strip that's supposed to be the nori part doesn't sit right across the white front of it, like the whole thing was made very poorly for someone who isn't quite the same size as this guy, and Kurt imagines if he touched it it would feel like one of those stuffed animals you win at a theme park. No matter _how_ cute the guy is, he's got to be at least a little unhinged to be working this dead-end job in this appalling costume and still be smiling like he just won the lottery. The whole thing is _ridiculous_. 

He can't help himself: "You know, you look ridiculous," he says, softly. They really are standing awfully close to each other. 

If anything, the guy wearing the costume just grins even wider. "That's what they pay me for." In the small gap between them, he holds up a glossy two-sided flyer, advertising gluten-free gyoza or something else equally frivolous. "Are you here for our appetizer special, or maybe a signature Jewel tapioca drink?" 

"I'm sure we can figure all that out inside," says Mercedes, an obvious dismissal using what Kurt immediately recognizes as her talking-to-crazy-people voice. She tugs on Kurt a little and keeps powering toward the door, and Kurt, amused and not quite sure exactly by whom, can only shoot the guy an apologetic _what-can-you-do?_ sort of smile before they disappear inside.

A bored-looking woman, obviously Asian but with no trace of an accent like they've encountered in the past, stops them at the hostess booth. "Hi there, welcome to Jewel of the East," she says, all polite smiles and faux-interest, a veneer that Kurt recognizes all too well. "How many?"

 "Just two," says Mercedes.

 "We have room at the bar or I can seat you at a table near the window."

 Kurt blurts out, "The window," and Mercedes shoots him a look. He shrugs. The hostess witnesses all this and gives them an eyebrow raise but says nothing. She just grabs a pair of menus and starts walking, and they follow behind.

The restaurant bears little resemblance to their old reliable Kappa from before the change – though it's not as bad as the tacky exterior may have led Kurt to believe. The color palette is predominantly pale, trendy blues and greens, and the new lighting is much brighter and airier than the sultry bar atmosphere of before. The bar stools have little half-backs now. Coral reefs and starfish are some weird visual motifs in places. Kurt tries to retain as many details as he can to report back to Rachel, who is no doubt the person he keeps getting little text message buzzes from in his satchel. He catches one particularly cringe-worthy piece of "authentic Asian art" up on the wall by the bathroom; a quick look to Mercedes confirms that she saw it, too. They stifle their giggles again.

They do get the spot near the window, and Kurt tries to maneuver so that the light from outside isn't reflecting right into his face. The hostess pours them some complimentary water, smiles an even faker smile than before, and then disappears.

"I don't even know what to think," says Mercedes.

"I miss the old tablecloths," says Kurt, dragging his finger at the fabric.

She twists over her shoulder. "Hey, can you see that egg roll clown from where you're at?" Then, as she turns back – "Is _that_ why you wanted the window spot? So we can keep hate-watching?"

"I have to admit, it doesn't _not_ sound appealing," says Kurt. Sure enough, his line of sight to the sushi costume guy outside isn't terrible. He's talking to a mom with a two-seater stroller, but the encounter looks like it's actually going okay this time, for once.

Kurt rolls his eyes, focusing back on Mercedes and letting his eyes readjust to the indoor light. "Maybe in a minute. You said you had gossip?"

"I did not say gossip, I said _news_ ," she says, but then they're interrupted _again_ , this time by the arrival of the waiter.

"Konnichiwa!" It sounds fake as hell coming out of his mouth, but his smile and his energy, at least, seem fairly real, another Asian-American trapped in an awkward establishment but trying to make the best of it. "Welcome to Jewel of the East, I am Mike and I'll be your server today. We're still in the middle of our grand re-opening, so all lunch items will include a complimentary soup if you like, and let me know if you want to hear any of the other specials."

"I sure will," says Mercedes, grinning like she's scandalized herself. Kurt's tempted to agree – Mike, while probably straight, is certainly easy on the eyes, trim and athletic and with well-styled hair. Kurt pegs him as probably a struggling model or dancer. He lets himself look, just a little. (Mercedes, maybe more than a little.)

There's a sudden whoop of laughter audible from the street outside the window, and all three of them turn to look: a cute, mid-sized mutt has jumped its front paws up onto the body of the sushi suit, and the guy inside it seems _overjoyed_ , a few of his flyers scattering to the ground, onlookers loving it. Kurt finds himself smiling, a mixture of derisive and yet fondly delighted. Who _is_ this guy.

Mike seems a little less pleased. "Aww, Blaine, we're gonna have to wash it again... Uh, sorry." He catches himself. "Were you ready to order, or did you need a few more minutes? Anything to drink besides water? Just one thing, please know that in our move toward becoming more family-friendly we are no longer serving alcohol with our lunch menu."

"Ooh, don't tell Sugar," says Mercedes.

"Just water is fine," says Kurt.

"Yeah, just – give us a minute, and then come _right_ back." She smiles a million watts at him, and Mike, looking to his credit only slightly confused, nods and heads off, shooting just one last glance out the window at the sushi costume guy – _Blaine,_ Kurt's brain supplies. Because for some reason Kurt's brain is retaining that info. Blaine has stopped to conscientiously pick up his dropped flyers, a few dirt-grey pawprints streaked up and down his ricy front. The costume looks really, really hard to bend over in.

"Okay, before I get distracted again!" says Mercedes. "Drumroll please – I got you an _amazing_ line on an audition coming up!"

That definitely gets Kurt's attention. "What? Why didn't you just lead with that! Oh my god, okay, tell me everything." He shoots Blaine one last glance out the window, too, and then returns to the matter at hand: catching up, killer gossip, and bougie Asian food.

\---

Kurt has a _rollercoaster_ of a week. Lars – the bad-cop of his two ridiculous bosses – leaves for vacation, which boosts his spirits; but then the girl at the salon cuts his hair way, way too short, which dampens them again. Their electrical bill comes and it's remarkably low, even for all they've been running their window-unit AC, so that's a small but crucial blessing. He tries to focus on that when he ruins his Thursday morning breakfast by adding expired milk to his oatmeal.

A guy at his yoga studio asks him out, but Kurt politely turns him down, even though later he can't for the life of him figure out _why_. (That's the part of the rollercoaster where it tips you over at ninety degrees while you go around a curve.)

Friday he ducks out of the last half of his workday and heads deeper into Brooklyn for this audition. It's been a while, and Kurt is insanely grateful – most of the opportunities that have come his way lately have been looking for a more Finn Hudson type, and Kurt's long given up kidding himself that he'll ever play the romantic lead opposite a woman. But this part, an artistically inclined B character with plenty of time to shine without being caught up in inane heterosexuality, is right up his alley, and Kurt, if he may say, _crushes_ his audition. He leaves the studio space feeling the best he has all week – like he really might finally get back on the horse with performing. It's exactly what he needed. He makes the executive decision to treat himself.

And almost as soon as he thinks the words, Kurt's on the L train, heading back into the city toward Jewel of the East. Even if, for the life of him, he can't figure out why.

His lunch with Mercedes last Tuesday had confirmed the dish from Sugar – though there has been a minor, unfortunate hike in prices, and there's a truly unnecessary amount of "grand re-opening" specials, most of their tried and true favorite menu items were exactly the same, the green volcano rolls and the shrimp dumplings and the plum mochi ice cream. They are also, blessedly, still doing takeout, which he learned when Rachel brought home a giant bag of spring rolls and unagi salad for the three of them in the loft the following Sunday. Which is to say, Kurt's eaten their food twice already in as many weeks, but here he is again, nothing standing between him and I-don't-have-a-problem-I-can-quit-anytime sushi but - oh, goodie – a guy in a giant tamago roll suit.

Kurt grins. He finds that he kind of – wants to talk to this guy, again. To thank him for all the entertainment his ridiculous antics have provided them with. But when the sushi turns around –

"Oh – it’s you."

"What do you mean, _oh, it's me_?" Because it isn't Blaine; it's a girl, the bored hostess from his and Mercedes's lunch date, looking decidedly less bored and also much, much less friendly than Blaine's incarnation of the character.

"No, I just meant – "

"I swear," she barrels on, "what is it about this thing that makes people feel like they can treat the person wearing it with such disrespect?"

Kurt's eyes narrow. "Well, for starters, it's probably because anyone wearing that thing doesn't really look like they have a whole lot of respect for _themselves._ " He's not doing this today. No giant sushi is going to harsh his buzz.

"I'm a human being!" the girl shouts. "Sushis are people too!"

A wide-eyed blonde, reeking intensely of cannabis, stops right in front of them on the sidewalk and says very loudly, "Whoa, what the _fuck_? Your sushi is _people_?"

She panics. "What?! No! Our sushi is – fresh caught in – " She fumbles the Jewel of the East flyers, and manages to catch them all but only after some conspicuous distressed flailing.

"Soylent green sushi!" shouts another guy down closer to the crosswalk. "Y'all are sick!" A young couple, coming from the other direction, give the sushi girl a wide berth as they pass, shooting the restaurant a confused and uncomfortable look. She gives them a forced, overcompensating smile until the sidewalk sort of clears out, at which point she rounds on Kurt again.

"Do you see the kind of _disaster_ you are causing?" she growls, quieter but no less vicious.

" _Me_?"

"After what happened last time, on top of all that, you're out to screw with me even more – "

"Wait, hold up," says Kurt, "last time?"

"You came in for lunch and you and your friend spent the entire time making eyes at _my man_!"

"Making eyes at – "

"I know he's gorgeous, but he's straight, by the way, and honestly the _disrespect_ – "

The lightbulb in Kurt's head kicks on. "The waiter. Mike! You two are dating?"

"...No," she says, and Kurt's eyebrows furrow harder. "But we will be! So tell your flirty friend to back off, I have dibs!" She points a finger right at him, black-polished nails dangerously close to his face, and this is about to be his absolute _last straw_ when someone pops out of the alley between Jewel of the East and the adjacent building and crosses straight over to them.  

"Tina, relax." Kurt recognizes the voice, and when he gets a better look, he realizes he recognizes the face, too.

"Oh – it's you," he says again, with a wholly different weight behind it. It's Blaine. The man behind the hideous costume, looking – anything but hideous, it turns out. He's even smaller than Kurt realized, with suave and fastidious slicked-back hair and a trim waist, and he's wearing a brilliant blue polo shirt with sharp spring-green accents that coordinates perfectly with his well-fitted khaki pants, turned up to show about two inches of ankle above sweet little (designer!) suede brogues. It's not really Kurt's look, but it's a _look_ , carefully cultivated style that makes a statement about its wearer, and okay that polo really is incredibly snug around his shoulders and biceps and oh god damnit, sushi Blaine is _cute_. Kurt did not see this coming and did _not_ prepare accordingly.

"Sorry, she's been having a rough week," Blaine says, at once kind to him and admonishing to Tina, who is glowering still but has fallen silent.

"It's – it's not a big deal, I guess," says Kurt, still regaining his footing. "To me, anyway. I fear it may not exactly be great for business."

"That's why this is usually _Blaine's_ job," she says pointedly.

"I know, I know, and thank you so much for covering for me, I owe you drinks or _something_ , I just had to make it to that callback, I knew they'd never let me reschedule – "

"Yeah, well, we both know I'm the only other person who fits in the suit," says Tina, cracking a soft smile and nudging the edge of the costume into his shoulder.

But Kurt's brain is a few seconds behind. "Callback?"

"Oh – yeah, it's, it's nothing huge or anything, just a commercial that my brother's working on... I haven't really done a whole lot of acting in, gosh, almost a year?" His smile matches Tina's, bashful and sweet and holy shit has he _always_ had that many eyelashes? "But I'm feeling like – like I might finally get back on the horse, with performing."

Kurt desperately needs to excuse himself.

"Look, you're here now, so can we get this thing _off_ of me?" says Tina, gesturing to the alley Blaine emerged from. He makes a silly _after you_ gesture and she zips off that way immediately – surprisingly nimble for someone in a mascot suit. Blaine flashes Kurt a grin – part apology, part his trademark charm, part something entirely inscrutable – and disappears after her. Kurt, somewhat dumbstruck, makes his way into the restaurant proper.

A tiny girl with glasses is at the hostess stand. "Hello and thank you for coming to Jewel of the East and would you like a seat at the bar?" she squeaks all at once.

"That sounds great," Kurt says, following blankly behind her, his eyes still slightly out of focus. He sits. He orders a vegetarian wonton soup and a small sashimi sampler. He'd almost forgotten where he even was.

Kurt is back at Jewel of the East, eating sushi for the third time this month, and the thing is, he's pretty sure he _can_ figure out why. And in fact, it might actually be the _same_ reason he turned down the guy at the yoga studio.

Kurt glances out the front window almost reflexively, and the giant sushi suit is, wow, already back – and this time it's Blaine inside, Kurt can just tell from the body language. He looks like he's – looking for something? Some _one_? And when he doesn't see it, whatever it is, his posture inside the polyester slackens, just a tiny bit; but he recovers quickly, straightens back up, and extends a flyer to an older woman with an enormous lime-green handbag, who smiles almost instantly. Kurt, he finds, is smiling hugely, too. Just from watching him.

Okay, so maybe Kurt did kind of see this coming, after all.

\---

When Kurt's phone dings with an email alert, he doesn't really think anything of it, but he's just bored enough – sacked out on the sofa with some magazines, trying to beat the heat as June creeps closer to July – that he flips through to his inbox to check it. It's probably more bullshit from work.

He sits bolt upright. It is not bullshit from work.

"I got called back!" he all but squeals, reading the short email a second and then a third time, just to make sure.

Rachel's faces swings out of the bathroom, a dusty-aqua face mask about two-thirds applied. "Already? I thought you said it was going to be at least a week till you heard!"

"That's what they said, but I guess maybe they're ahead of schedule," Kurt says.

"Yeah, _or_ , maybe you were just so good that they knew they had to see more of you right away," says Rachel, grinning. "Kurt!" 

"As usual," comes Santana's voice, as she slips out from behind her privacy curtain, "Rachel is plenty magnanimous about the successes of others as long as they don't eclipse her own."

"Santana, don't be mean," Rachel chastises. Kurt and Santana exchange a look and a _yeah, right_ chuckle. "I'm serious! We should celebrate, this is a big opportunity for you, from what I understand that director is _going places_. Oooh lemme finish my mask and then we'll all go out!" 

Santana shrugs. "You know what, fine, I'm down. I don't have to be at the diner until ten tomorrow. You wanna do that place downtown? The DJ I hooked up with doesn't play there any more – " 

"I don't have the energy for all that," says Kurt. "It's _hot_."

"Yes, let's go somewhere nicer. And with more – chill. Oh, that French place! _Tr_ _è_ _s_ classy, very celebratory."

" _Muy_ expensive," Santana counters. "I'm not tryna break the bank on a Wednesday."

As casually as he possibly can, Kurt takes the plunge: "We could just do Jewel of the East, maybe?"

Okay, yes, Kurt was just there five days ago. But the thing is, six days ago, Kurt still hadn't realized that Blaine, the walking, talking, giant sushi, was actually the most adorable and fascinating romantic prospect he's had in months, maybe even all year. And so for all of those five days, Kurt's been thinking distractedly about him at all random times of the day, his sweet voice and sweeter smile, his handsome little ensemble and, it's possible, in some of his less decorous moments, the tight shapes of his body. Other than wearing a hideous costume for a living, Kurt hasn't found a single thing about Blaine yet that he doesn't like, and it's only made him want to learn more, and more.

Unfortunately, for right now, Kurt knows basically nothing about him, except for the associations he has with Jewel of the East. Which, double unfortunately, means that Kurt has spent not only a lot of time thinking about Blaine, but a lot of time thinking about sushi, and about the restaurant itself, and his workplace doodles this week may have included not only a sketch of a sleek polo shirt but also bunches of nigiri and two – two! – new, infinitely less racist designs for the Jewel logo. Kurt feels like an idiot. Kurt also really, really wants to go back to the restaurant.

His roommates, currently, need not know either of these things if at all possible.

Triple unfortunately, Santana sees straight through him in about two seconds.

"Are you freaking forreal?" she says, rounding slowly on him from where she's been sniping toward the bathroom. " _Again_? Correct me if I'm wrong, but would this not make _four_ times in the month of June alone, if we count Berry's takeout from last weekend?"

"You know it's – "

"I know this because you put that stupid selfie with the fugly fish painting in the men's room on your Snapchat story _and_ snapped it to me personally, which you know I absolutely cannot abide by."

"You went there last week too!" Rachel calls from the bathroom.

"Yes, because I needed a stiff one with all the shit Gunther was trying to put me through at the diner. You know they're not even doing drinks at lunch any more? How am I supposed to get my sake on?"

"Day-drinking is so – "

"Berry, no one asked you. What I am _trying_ to ask is why Hummel insists on going back there week after week when the fact of the matter is, you can't go five minutes without having to deal with some Ken-Gentrified Chicken beeyotch attempting to wrangle her five children when at any given time, no fewer than three of them are all screaming for more yum-yum sauce. And I know it's not that waiter with the tight-ass dancer legs, because he is straight."

"Oh believe me," says Kurt, "that was made _abundantly_ clear to me." He stands from the sofa, trying to bolster himself. "Look, it's me we're supposedly celebrating, so can't it be my choice? Isn't that fair?"

"Kurt's right," says Rachel, and okay, this whole totally-on-his-side bit she's doing right now _is_ getting a little weird, but Kurt will absolutely take it. "We _haven't_ been for actual dinner yet, you know, so I'm sure you'll be able to drink as much sake as you want, Santana. And I want to try some of those new cocktails too! _Plus_ I'm back on eggs and dairy this week, and I want to get something wild with like, I don't know, cream cheese, and that fancy spicy mayonnaise – "

" _Wild,_ " he and Santana say at once, and just like that, she and Kurt are back on the same page, even though she's still eyeing him suspiciously. But he will absolutely take that too.

"And anyway, we've got to try whatever specials they have for the grand re-opening situation before the whole promo is over at the end of the month! I wonder if anything will actually stick or if it'll just kind of, y'know, be Kappa again – "

Kurt's breath sort of – arrests, in his chest, a slow grind to stillness like turning off a fan. It hadn't even occurred to him. But suddenly it _is_ occurring to him, all too clearly, that the promotional stuff is only for the month of June. And that a sushi mascot suit is definitely, probably, part of the promotional stuff.

"Exactly," he says, praying his voice doesn't sound as funny to the girls as it does to him. Santana eyeballs him even harder, so maybe he isn't quite so lucky, but she doesn't say anything else. And neither does he.

How is Kurt supposed to learn more about Blaine if he may never see him again after next week?

\---

The obvious answer is, of course, _ask him out_.

But the first and hugest problem with that is, Kurt's never really been much of an asker-outer. He's...reserved, when it comes to relationships, to romance. He had zero boyfriends in high school, and only one boyfriend in college – and even then, "boyfriend" was a strong word, and he definitely asked Kurt out, not the other way around. Then, the whole thing kind of fizzled out when it was clear that Adam was giving a lot more into the relationship than he was. The handful of one-off dates he's been on since then he's been asked on, and there's probably another handful he said no to. That's the side of the equation that just comes more naturally to him – not the wooer, but the being wooed. And so sue him, if Kurt's a romantic, but people have comfort zones for a reason. And while he loves to smash through them in the other facets of his life as often as possible, this part of him feels so much more – fragile. So he's clueless at best, and resistant at worst.

The second, only slightly smaller problem with that plan is that they get to Jewel of the East that night and _Blaine's not even there_.

Rachel finished her face mask, and Santana clipped in some nice extensions, and Kurt dithered intensely about his outfit while at the same time trying intensely not to look like he was (and ended up changing his pants but not his shirt or vest, which he doesn't love but he's committed to it now). Then Rachel oh-so-decadently called them an Uber and they zipped on over, but as the car pulled up, Kurt could already see that there was no giant sushi suit outside at all, not even Tina. He's grateful he was sitting in the front seat so Rachel and Santana had no chance of seeing his reaction, and he had time to school his expression accordingly.

Now they're inside – seated by his same hostess from Friday, served by a round-faced girl with bouncy, low-slung pigtails – and Kurt's doing his best to look like he's still really excited to be there. Considering this was his idea, after all.

"So who's this waiter you've all been talking about?" Rachel says, around a grin and a bright blue cocktail. "Is he single?"

"His name is Mike," says Kurt, "and... I _think_ so?" He sips a little on his own bright blue drink. "There's another girl that works here who went off on me about him being 'her man,' but the sense I got was that was kind of all in her head, so who even knows."

"I can't believe you're coming here so often that you're getting caught up in the employee soap opera," says Santana. "I gotta say I kind of love it. All drama is good drama. What's that one?"

"Uh, 'Williamsburg roll,' I think?" Kurt shrugs. "You can have it if you want."

"Hellz yeah." She chopsticks it right up off his plate.

"Anyway, I thought I saw him cutting through the back, but it could've been someone else." He sips his drink a little more and scrapes his soup spoon through a smear of wasabi cream sauce that's left on the corner of his plate, making weird little zigzags.

"Hummel, are you super-racistly implying that all Asian dudes look the same right now?"

"What? No, I – ugh, forget it."

Okay, maybe he's moping harder than he's trying to pretend. But like. Blaine isn't even _here._ Rachel had even said, as they were coming in, _"oh thank goodness that big mascot suit isn't here, those things give me the heebie-jeebies,"_ and Kurt had definitely winced. He just feels like – he'd really been building toward maybe psyching himself up to a place where he could do – he doesn't know – _something_ , and now the option isn't even there.

He kind of just wanted to see Blaine's face again.

"It's Kurt, right?"

Kurt looks up from staring at his plate, wondering if maybe he'll steal one of Santana's rolls back as a trade, to see that Mike is here after all, hovering next to their table looking – just _barely_ too friendly to be normal. He furrows his eyebrows a little. Rachel makes an entirely too amused face and sips her drink a little too hard.

"Yes?"

"The lunch crew will be bummed to have missed a regular," he says, with a little wink. "We're not used to seeing you after four p.m."

"We're celebrating!" says Rachel, who has maybe consumed more of that blue drink than Kurt realized. "Kurt just got called back for a big audition, he's the star of the evening."

"It's not that big," Kurt says – not even trying to be modest, because it really isn't.

"Still, that's great news!" says Mike, grinning excitedly. "We have a lot of performers on staff here, especially in the lunch crew, so I definitely understand." The way he's said "lunch crew" again is painfully obvious. Kurt doesn't have a whole lot of past experience to compare it to, but he's pretty sure Mike is being kind of weird. "We're so happy you've chosen to celebrate with us here at Jewel of the East."

"Ew, god, drop the customer service robot routine," says Santana, digging at the ice in her water glass with her straw. "I work in a restaurant too, I've been doing it for hours, it _hurts_ me."

Mike laughs. "Yikes, my bad," he says. "But seriously, Kurt, I think some congratulations are in order. I will – " Kurt can _see_ a flash of something in Mike's eyes, suddenly, and he's worried, or at least worried that maybe he should _be_ worried – "I'll be right back." Mike darts off, a little extra dancer sway in his step, and Kurt can only stare after him, kind of mindboggled. What on Earth is happening?

"I thought you said he was straight!" Rachel crows, as soon as he's out of earshot. "What was that about?" 

"I honestly couldn't tell you," says Kurt, wide-eyed. He downs some more of his drink, too – maybe alcohol will help – and then realizes exactly what it is she's said and narrows his eyes. "But god, it definitely wasn't _flirting_ – "

"Unless that guy is a worse flirt than you are, Porcelain," Santana finishes for him. Kurt feels kind of offended, but finds he can't even actually argue with her, so instead, he does end up stealing one of her rolls off her plate, shoving it in his mouth before she can protest. She laughs and throws her balled-up straw wrapper at him. "There, now you almost look like you're having fun, here at this restaurant that _you_ dragged us all to. Come on, Hummel."

"Where do you think he went?" Rachel giggles. "Oooh, is he going to bring us free stuff! Kurt, maybe you coming here all the time is going to pay off after all, you know, instead of just being weird!" Santana laughs even harder.

Sure enough, Mike is back before they can really move any further along in their conversation, and with a dramatic flourish, he reveals from behind his back a tiny platter, announcing, "On the house."

In the center of the plate, there's a little X of four perfectly-formed pieces of tamago nigiri, with an elaborate flower made out of sliced ginger resting right in the center.

Oh. _Oh._ Maybe – maybe _that's_ what on Earth is happening.

Kurt – even though he can _feel_ his face turning a different, much more embarrassing color – finds his voice just fine. "Let me guess. Compliments of the – _lunch crew_?"

"Exactly," says Mike. He winks again, deposits the plate gracefully on their table, and is gone.

"Oooohkay, now I'm just confused," says Rachel. But the look Santana is giving the whole display suggests that she, at least, is anything but.

"Ku-urt, you don't look so good," she says, smug and delighted. "Why don't you head to the little boys' room and make sure you'll be able to partake in this beautiful gift from the _lunch crew_ without vomming onto your little elf boots?"

Kurt's mind is whirling too fast for him to really feel like he knows how to use his legs right now, but he definitely doesn't want to be sitting there with Santana laughing at him any longer than he has to, so he lifts robotically to his feet and autopilots to the bathrooms. He doesn't actually need to vomit, but he does splash some cold water onto his face, and give himself (and, okay, that godawful fish painting, just for a second) a long, hard look in the mirror. Girding himself. Psyching himself up, as hard as he can.

Because if Kurt's getting what he _thinks_ he's getting out of this whole remarkably un-subtle exchange, then maybe he can't keep waiting for the option to be there, for him to take, when he's ready. Maybe he really does have to smash just one more comfort zone.

What was it Mike said? Four p.m.?

\---

Kurt gives himself pep talks – in the bathroom mirror, on the subway, at his desk at work. He can ask a boy out. Especially a really, really cute one, who is actually probably _maybe_ receptive to the whole situation. He is going to straighten his spine, dress to impress, and head over to Jewel of the East right when Blaine is getting off his shift at four o'clock, catch him when he's free, and be flirtatious but straightforward. _Do you want to get an iced coffee with me at that place one block over?_

But Thursday, at about 2:30, a minor implosion occurs in a project at the office. Katy from sales is going to murder Marc from advertising and no one told Sharice from talent, and Bobby from downstairs is possibly sleeping with all three of them, and any notions Kurt might have had about sneaking out before five o'clock go right out the window. His resolve weakens, slightly – are sex and relationships really worth it, if this is so often how they end? – but he powers through it, prays he hasn't already blown his best outfit option, and shifts gears for trying again on Friday.

Except Friday, at about 3:45, Kurt is coming up on Jewel of the East from a couple blocks away when the sky suddenly _cracks_ open with a torrential summer rain storm. Pedestrians scramble, Kurt included – his hair, his outfit, his _shoes_ , all definitely ruined – and when he squints out into the downpour, he sees the bright yellow of the giant sushi suit waddling back inside the restaurant, too. God, Kurt can't even imagine what that thing must be like when it takes on water. He sighs, and huddles further under the awning of the building he stopped in front of. His weather app says the storm should pass over soon enough. The moment, unfortunately, has passed already. Saturday then.

Saturday, at about ten a.m., Kurt wakes up to an email that he didn't get the part he auditioned for, after all. It honestly hits him way harder than he was expecting. The callback had lured him into a false sense of security – that maybe he _was_ going to be good enough to land something again. He'd work on a project, meet some new people, have some new experiences. Almost more than being on stage and performing, those were the things he was looking forward to, and now, just like that, he doesn't get any of it. He wallows in bed pitifully for over an hour more, then crawls into the kitchen still in his pajamas and makes chocolate chip pancakes and sulks. 

Rachel's full of simpering, your-life-sucks-but-mine-doesn't-so-I-totally-wouldn't-understand pity. "I thought you were going to go to the farmers' market! You love the farmers' market." 

"Nngh," says Kurt, Netflix-surfing.

"Kurt, there will be other auditions. We're in New York, there's _always_ other auditions."

Kurt wonders if Blaine landed the project he was called back for. Kurt imagines Blaine, his spry physicality, his sweet voice, his charm. Kurt imagines himself, an audition callback failure, asking out cute, talented Blaine.

He wants to die. He faceplants into the sofa pillows. He decides, melodramatically, that he isn't leaving the house today, and he's going to marathon the season of Amazing Race with those cute Chippendale dancers and eat more pancakes and reorganize his closet.

Santana, who is at the diner for all of this but manages to hear about it anyway, sends him a Snapchat: the entire screen covered with the sticker that's just the two smiley-faced eggs, over and over and over again, and the words **FIND YOUR OVARIES!! :)** in huge text right in the middle. Kurt snaps her back a giant middle finger emoji and calls, instead, Mercedes.

"What's up, boo? Are you coming to the farmers' market? They got hella peaches out here, let's make a pie."

"No," he says morosely. He tells her the abridged version of the whole situation. She clucks and groans and cheers at all the right moments. God bless her.

"Ugh, Mercedes, I just – How do you ask a boy out? It's terrible."

"I dunno, boys usually just ask me out."

" _Right!?_ It just makes so much more sense that way!"

"But to me, this whole thing sounds like it's, like, I don't know, low-risk? Like, he's into it, right? That's definitely what that sushi from the hot waiter meant, right?"

Kurt groans and rolls onto his back on the sofa. "See, all the individual pieces point to _yes_ , but usually, with my luck, when you put them all together in the big picture, it turns out totally, inexplicably different." 

"Kurt, you're not in school any more. You've got different luck now." She hums, an auditory grin. "We all do! Hell, Rachel Berry's probably gonna be on Broadway before this time next year, and it's only taken her like two years longer to get there than she thought it would. Puck sold a screenplay. I'm shopping my album around. And _you_ are gonna be the one who finds true love. It's karma, or something." 

A little thrum goes through Kurt's heart, like the plucking of a piano string. He sits back up, looks at where Netflix is asking him _Are you still watching The Amazing Race?_ , tells it no. "Thank you. Remind me again why I live with these two crazy people and not you?"

"Oh, because if we lived together, I'd end up having to snatch your face off," she says, deadly serious. "They always tell you not to room with your BFF in college or you start hating each other."

"Good point. Okay, I'm – I'm actually going to do it?" It becomes a question halfway through the sentence, because Kurt can barely believe it himself. "I think I've still got a couple of my best summer style options left, if I can just clean up a little from my wallowing session then I can – "

From off over his right shoulder, there is an absolutely hellacious screeching sound, metal on metal like a car crash miniaturized to the size of – well, to the size of a window unit air conditioner. A second or two later Kurt is smelling smoke.

"What the hell was that?" says Mercedes. 

" _That_ ," sighs Kurt, "was my big plans getting pushed back to tomorrow." 

Again. 

\--- 

Of course their air conditioning would break the day before what turns out to be the hottest day of the year so far. It's the last day of June and it feels like the last day of July, the dregs of summer setting in way, way early and the heat bogging down absolutely everything. Try as he might, Kurt's limited mechanic's skills weren't enough to fix the problem with the window unit, and they're going to have to buy a new one altogether. The new one will probably not be so forgiving on their electric bill. 

But in a stroke of alarming generosity, Santana has offered to pick it up on her way home from her midday shift at the Spotlight, leaving Kurt's afternoon totally free. He just has to manage to not – between the heat and the anxiety – completely sweat through his summer-weight, desperate-not-to-faint "asking a boy out" ensemble before four p.m., and he's got this in the bag. 

He's got this. 

Kurt steps off the muggy, disgusting subway and up into the blistering, disgusting sunlight of the above-ground world, deliberately disembarking on the wrong side of the street so he can hide out under the scaffolding to recover, cool off, and spy. Blaine is up to his usual antics, but even he is looking slightly worse for wear in the oppressive heat, his trademark energy flagging a little. He's only got a couple of flyers left in his stack, and whenever he doesn't think anyone's looking, he uses them to fan his face where it sticks out from inside the costume. 

Kurt's here, Blaine's there. No catastrophes immediately visible. So far so good. 

Kurt knows he's a little early so he keeps watching. Blaine's talking to a middle-aged tourist man, now, and after a moment they begin to awkwardly (adorably) twist-boogie dance at each other; in a moment of low traffic noise, Kurt hears a strain of them singing, Blaine a lovely clear tenor and this grey-haired dad something raspy and lower. It's that One Week song – the part about the sushi and the wasabi. Kurt laughs aloud. The guy actually goes inside the restaurant. Blaine does a little heel-click of victory, which attracts the attention of a nearby gaggle of teenage girls, who swarm him to take goofy group selfies. Kurt lifts his phone and snipes a quick shot of his own. Is that creepy? That's creepy. Just ask him out already. 

"You got this," he whispers to himself. He gives himself a quick once-over: his shorts are laying right across his thighs, his neckerchief is tied loosely and artfully, and, checking in selfie-cam, his bangs haven't totally deflated yet. It's not as good as his Thursday outfit, but in this weather, it'll do. He _is_ showing a little more skin than usual, his collar unbuttoned daringly deep, so maybe that will work in his favor. 

Ready to mobilize, he drops his phone and glances back over across the street, just in time to see the tail end of Blaine's yellow backside disappearing around the corner into the alleyway. 

He checks his phone again. Shit. 4:02. Kurt jaywalks harder than he's ever jaywalked before and bolts across the street. Who knew Blaine would be so punctual? (Then again, Kurt would probably be yanking himself out of that suit the second he was allowed to, too.) He follows down the alleyway without even thinking. He's probably not even allowed back there – employees only, or something? He doesn't know _what_ he's expecting. 

He's definitely not expecting Tina to be there, helping Blaine strip out of the giant sushi suit right there on the street. 

"Oh god," Kurt yelps. Tina turns immediately to look at him; Blaine, understandably, can't, and probably didn't even hear him, the thick suit wrenched halfway off over his head. 

Tina doesn't really say anything to him, just grins madly. "We lost the deposit on this demented thing because it got too grungy, so we don't have to return it. We're gonna _burn it_. You wanna stay and watch?" 

"Tina, who's there?" Blaine shouts, muffled by the polyester and plush foam. "Can you just get this thing off me first, I'm gonna sweat to _death_ – " Blaine finally emerges from the bottom of the nigiri, where a zipper has been, Kurt has to admit, cleverly hidden at the butt-end juncture of the white rice part and the yellow egg part. It slides clean off at last and Tina chucks it across the alleyway, crying out delightedly. 

Kurt and Blaine, meanwhile, are basically staring at each other. 

Kurt says again, "Oh god." 

The clothes Blaine was wearing under the suit are _completely_ soaked through, as is his hair, curling limply over his forehead in zero resemblance to his dapper 'do from the last time they spoke. What he is currently wearing is a paper-thin grey A-shirt tank top, rendered literally translucent from the sweat to the point that Kurt can absolutely _see his nipples holy shit_ , and a pair of black leggings that Kurt had just assumed were also part of the suit but do, in fact, appear to be Blaine's, glued to every curve of his strong calves and thick thighs and his _ass –_  

"Oh, god," says Blaine, staring slack-jawed at the space where the second button on Kurt's shirt is undone, and in one motion, he and Kurt are rushing each other and Kurt is jamming his tongue into Blaine's mouth. 

Kurt had no idea that he could get even hotter than he already was and that he would _enjoy_ it. 

"All riiiight, so now – Blaine!" comes Tina's voice from far, far away, as Kurt breathes in the heat of Blaine and sighs out the taste of him back into his own mouth. "God damnit. Okay, like, _finally_ , but screw you guys, I'm lighting the sushi on fire all by myself now and you two just have to catch up. Cohen-Chang out!" She disappears, Kurt assumes. He is one hundred percent not paying attention. 

Blaine's broad, strong hands are leaving sweaty prints all across his back, as they roam across it and press Kurt's own sweat into the shirt from the inside. Kurt has his own hands digging into the sweet curve of Blaine's tiny waist, and when he strokes his thumb against the bone-edge of Blaine's hip Blaine makes the most incredible noise, inhaling sharply and kissing him even harder. Blaine is an _insanely_ good kisser. Sweat rolls down from the divot of his upper lip and slips between them, making it slicker, saltier, as Blaine twists his lips dirty against Kurt's and sucks on his tongue in a way that has Kurt rocking up on his tiptoes, his thighs rolling forward to press flat into Blaine's own, two bars of hot, white heat that make his muscles thrum. 

They pop apart panting in the muggy air. Kurt can feel Blaine grinning against his sweaty cheek. 

"Damn," says Blaine, so soft and breathless that Kurt honestly considers swooning. "I really wanted to ask you out. I was looking forward to – like, wooing you. I feel like we skipped a step." 

Kurt's heart _soars_ , and he's honestly so loopy from heat and _disbelief_ that he nearly starts laughing. "We skipped a lot of steps," he says. "And I am seriously not worried about it." 

"Go out with me?" 

"Anywhere but sushi?" 

"Deal." Blaine seals his mouth back over Kurt's, one hand still clutching tight in the small of his back. With the other hand, he grabs one of _Kurt's_ hands, and slides it around until it's planted firmly over one hot, lush curve of his ass. Kurt squeezes tight through the thin, sweaty leggings. Blaine groans, low and thready and way, way too sexual for an alleyway behind a bougie restaurant. Kurt kind of – _loves_ it. He grinds their hips together a little and sucks his teeth into Blaine's bottom lip. 

"Stop, stop, it's too hot," Blaine finally says, separating their bodies for real, but then "God, _Kurt –_ " and he leans back in, smashes one more hard, fast kiss to Kurt's mouth, teeth and tongue and sweat. He looks bashful. "Sorry, is it – is it creepy that I looked at your credit card receipts to figure out what your name was?" 

Kurt _had_ wondered how Mike knew. But he counters, "Is it creepy that I came back to the same restaurant five times in one month just to ogle the promotional sushi costume guy out front?" 

Blaine laughs. "I'm glad that thing didn't scare you off." 

"Well, I have to admit, I like you better out of it than in it." 

"That makes two of us." Blaine pauses, glances sideways, and does a cute little pointing thing with his hands, all deft wrists and glib, fidgety energy. "Which – reminds me, ah, Tina probably actually will start a dumpster fire if we leave her unsupervised, so I should – " He sighs. "I should go." 

And Kurt _pouts_. "When will I see you again?" 

"I'm not sure – they're, uh, they're keeping me on as a bus boy now that the sushi suit days are over, but my hours are kind of up in the air." Blaine fidgets a little more, his smile turning sweet and hopeful. "Can I give you my number? Will you call me? I don't have, uh." He pats down his legs and his butt, places where there definitely aren't pockets that could hold a phone in his tight, tight leggings. Kurt stares only a little before snapping to it. 

"Right, oh, right!" he stammers, offering his phone up to Blaine instead. Blaine types his info in, quickly calls his own number, and then hangs up and returns it. _Blaine Anderson_ , and then underneath, _(sushi guy)_. Kurt laughs – as if he'd forget. But Blaine just keeps giving him an absolutely stunning smile. 

In the space between them in the alleyway, the barest tips of their fingers drag together, a soft slick tangle that's the most they can manage now in the oppressive heat. And with some probably truly disgusting heart eyes, even that slowly slips apart, as the two of them turn back to the real world – Blaine to stop a dumpster fire, finally clock out, and wrap up the grand re-opening, and Kurt to go help like, wrangle the new AC into their apartment window, or something. 

(But oh, does he definitely watch Blaine go.) 

Kurt strolls away from Jewel of the East, then, and back down into the N-Q-R to head home, most definitely not for the last time. He doesn't bother sitting down, leans his face uber-unhygienically against the cool metal of the standing pole, anxious to cool down. An elderly woman sitting on the bench nearest him gives him a sort of a look, and he does his best not to glare back. Whatever, lady, it's _hot_. 

But when a pair of girls hop on at the next stop gossiping loudly, only to catch sight of him and immediately fall silent, staring also, Kurt gets paranoid. As discreetly as possible (which is to say, not very), he tugs his phone from his pocket and checks himself in selfie-cam. 

Oh. Okay, so maybe he _was_ just making out with a really cute boy who is maybe his boyfriend now(??), but he wasn't really imagining he _looked_ so much like he was. But his hair is an absolute disaster, stuck every which way with sweat from what must have been Blaine's grabbing hands at some point; his neckerchief is twisted askew, and his mouth looks...sloppy, a little slick and red and yeah, kind of embarrassing. Kurt feels like he should recompose himself, but there's basically no way to do it subtly, and he's not exactly keen on having an audience. 

Eh, screw it. At the next stop, with his brief window of cell service, Kurt slaps some lovey-dovey stickers on a grinning, totally wrecked selfie and sticks it in his Snapchat story. 

(He also snaps it to Santana, specifically.)

 


End file.
